PM Modi-led panel's key meeting to pick 2 new election commissioners today, days after Arun Goel's resignation

The meeting will be held at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg (7LKM) where leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Choudhary will also be present.

Updated on: Mar 14, 2024, 11:57:08 IST

By HT News Desk

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi-chaired high-powered committee on selecting election commissioners will meet on Thursday, March 14, to finalise the names of two new election commissioners. A search committee headed by Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal met on Wednesday evening to prepare a panel of five candidates to fill two vacancies of election commissioners in the Election Commission, news agency PTI reported, citing sources.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (ANI Photo)

The meeting will be held at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg (7LKM) where leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Choudhary will also be present. Based on the recommendation of the selection committee, President Droupadi Murmu will then appoint the two members of the poll panel.

Top updates on PM-chaired panel meet on ECs:

Two vacancies of election commissioners came about following the resignation of Arun Goel on March 8 and Anup Chandra Pandey's retirement on February 14. This leaves Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar as the sole member of the poll authority.
The selection panel is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has a Union minister and the Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as its members.
Reports claimed that the appointment of two new election commissioners is likely to be made by the same day or the next.
Once the appointments are notified, they will be the first to have been made under the new law. The law also gives the power to the three-member selection panel to appoint a person not short-listed by the search committee.
Before the new law on the appointment of the CEC and ECs came into force recently, election commissioners were appointed by the President on the government's recommendation and as per custom, the senior-most was appointed as CEC.
Clause 2 of Article 324 of the Constitution states that the Election Commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and such number of other Election Commissioners, if any, as the President may from time to time fix. Originally, the commission had only a CEC. It currently consists of the CEC and two election commissioners.

(With inputs from agencies)

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